The University of Illinois Observatory, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.

The University of Illinois Observatory was constructed in 1896. It stands on South Matthews Avenue in Urbana, Champaign County, Illinois. 

Erected in 1896 at the behest of the Illinois General Assembly, the University of Illinois Observatory became important in the development of astronomy due, in large part, to pioneering research by Stebbins, from 1907 to 1922. Joel Stebbins left the University of Illinois in 1922 but left behind a legacy of discovery that helped alter the face of modern astronomy.

The building, itself, is in a traditional observatory design, Colonial Revival style, following a T-plan. The dome rises 35 feet in the air. 

The observatory played a key role in the development of astronomy as it was home to a key innovation in the area of astronomical photometry. The facility has been directed by such noted scientists as Joel Stebbins and Robert H. Baker.

Though none of the astronomical instruments are being used for professional research today, the observatory still contains a 12" Brashear refractor telescope.

 

Recent Photograph of the Refurbished 12" Brashear Refractor Telescope.

The building served the University of Illinois astronomy department from its opening until 1979, when the department moved into a new, larger building to house its growing staff.

The observatory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 6, 1986 and on December 20, 1989, the U.S. Department of Interior designated the observatory a National Historic Landmark.

In 2013 and 2014, the telescope and the dome were refurbished.

Gromer Super Markets, Streamwood, Illinois.

Dick Gromer's late father introduced Elgin grocery shoppers to self-service in 1936. In 1961 the "Elgin Gromer Super Markets" name was registered.

Gromer welcome greeted Streamwood, Illinois shoppers as Gromer Super Market. Manager Harry Overbey (left) and Richard "Dick" H. Gromer hoisted banners pronouncing the new store in the Streamwood Shopping Center on Bartlett Road, the sixth store for the Gromer family. Mrs. Ralph King of Streamwood and her daughter Julie, 3 years old, were early customers in 1967.

In 1962 it was registered as the "Hanover [Park] Gromer Super Markets." Then in 1963 it was reregistered again as Gromer Super Markets, Inc. 

Dick Gromer had checkout scanners installed in 1977, when only about 300 stores in North America had the price-reading computers. Dick's son, Gordon, brought 24-hour shopping and an instore salad bar to the stores. Gromer's opens a supermarket in Clock Tower Plaza in Elgin, IL in 1988 and closed thiat store one year later in 1989. Gromer's supermarket in Wing Park Shopping Center, Elgin, IL is closed in 1995.

---

Chicago Tribune - October 13, 1988
24-Hour Restaurant. Is Just Part Of The Food Service In New Supermarket.

Back in the 1950s, when most markets were small neighborhood grocery stores with some just beginning to be called "super," Richard Gromer installed a bakery in his Elgin food store. Since then he has kept attuned to supermarket trends and was among the first local grocers to add such things as a salad bar and taco bar. When video rental parlors became popular, he put 2,000 movie titles on the shelves at his present 50,000-square-foot supermarket in the Wing Park Shopping Center in northwest Elgin.

So when the 24-hour-day, 7-day-a-week, 63,000-square-foot Gromer Super Market opens later this month in a shopping center on the site of the old Elgin National Watch Company, it will offer another added feature; a 185-seat, round-the-clock restaurant. "Restaurants in supermarkets are not unknown in other parts of the country," said Gromer, president of Gromer Super Markets Inc., "but there are very few in the Chicago area."

The restaurant, designed to reflect the style of the famous watch factory with wood and brass trimmings, vaulted ceiling and photos of the historic timepiece manufacturer, will be buffet style. A full kitchen, much of it open to public view, will service the restaurant on one side and a supermarket deli on the other with hot and cold meals to take out. "We have the ingredients if people want to fix their own food at home; we have hot food already prepared that they can take out and eat; and now we have a restaurant where they can come in, sit down and eat right here," Gromer said. 

Gromer operates the Library restaurant, downtown at 50 N. Spring St., on the site of the old Elgin public library, and an adjunct eatery called the Archives. He and a partner were the developers of the 22-store Clock Tower Plaza shopping center at 100 National St., in southeast Elgin. Installing a cafeteria-style restaurant in a supermarket was an outgrowth of the popularity of the salad and taco bars and the deli in his present store, Gromer said.

"We had a complementary coffee shop with a couple of tables, and in the summer we put up some umbrella tables outside where we were selling ice cream cones. But people were buying salads or getting hot food from the deli and sitting at the tables to eat it. That`s how ideas are born." The restaurant, which has been issued a liquor license, will serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night snacks, "anything people want to buy," he said. `It will be the only 24-hour restaurant around. The only question we have is just what kind of business we`ll have between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m."

Gromer`s new store also will contain a bakery, a smokehouse and sausage-making facility and a fresh seafood counter. 

"We have plenty of competition," Gromer said. "Dominick`s, Jewel, Eagle. But we can go toe to toe with the competition any day." 

The Chain of Rocks Bridge, Chouteau Island, Illinois.

Chain of Rocks Bridge is one of the more interesting bridges in America. It’s hard to forget a 30-degree turn midway across a mile-long bridge that is more than 60 feet above the mighty Mississippi. For more than three decades, the bridge was a significant landmark for travelers driving Route 66.

The bridge’s colorful name came from a 17-mile shoal, or series of rocky rapids, called the Chain of Rocks beginning just north of St. Louis. The eastern end of the bridge is on Chouteau Island, a part of Madison, Illinois while the western end lands on the Missouri shoreline.

Multiple rock ledges just under the surface made this stretch of the Mississippi River extremely dangerous to navigate. In the 1960s, the Corps of Engineers built a low-water dam covering the Chain of Rocks. That’s why you can’t see them today. Back in 1929, at the time of the construction of the bridge, the Chain was a serious concern for boatmen.

A massive undertaking in its day, the Chain of Rocks Bridge had a projected cost of $1,250,000. The bridge was to be a straight, 40-foot wide roadway with five trusses forming 10 spans. Massive concrete piers standing 55 feet above the high-water mark were to support the structure. Plans called for a four-mile fill along the road leading to the bridge’s eastern end.

All that proved true except for one major change, the direction. Riverboat men protested the planned bridge because it was to run near two water intake towers for the Chain of Rocks pumping station. Navigating the bridge piers and the towers at the same time, the river captains argued, would be extremely treacherous for vessels and barges. Besides, the initial straight line would have put the bridge over a section of the river where the bedrock was insufficient to support the weight of the piers. Either way, the bridge had to bend.

Construction started on both sides of the river simultaneously in 1927, and the piers were complete by August of 1928. A grand opening was planned for New Year’s Day 1929. The Mississippi River had other plans. Floods and ice slowed the work, and the Chain of Rocks Bridge finally opened to traffic in July of 1929.

Then, as now, actual expenditures for construction often exceed projected costs. Chain of Rocks Bridge cost just over $2.5 million -- twice its original estimate. Fortunately, the public got its money’s worth. The bridge had beautifully landscaped approaches. A park-like setting around a pool and a large, ornate toll booth anchored the Missouri end. On the Illinois side, 400 elm trees lined the approach. The bridge brought travelers into St. Louis by way of the picturesque Chain of Rocks amusement park on the Missouri hills overlooking the river. On a clear day, crossing the Chain of Rocks Bridge was a real pleasure. That pleasure became an official part of the Route 66 experience in 1936, when the highway was rerouted over the bridge.

During World War II, Chain of Rock’s colorful red sections had to be painted green to make the bridge less visible from the air. At the same time, wartime gas rationing reduced traffic. To offset these costs, the City of Madison increased bridge tolls to 35 cents per car, with an additional five cents per passenger—a fee structure that sets on its head today’s system of special high-speed lanes reserved for cars carrying more, not fewer, people.

In 1967, the New Chain of Rocks Bridge carrying Interstate 270 opened just 2,000 feet upstream of the old bridge, which closed in 1968. The bridge deteriorated, and during the 1970s, Army demolition teams considered blowing it up just for practice. In 1975, demolition seemed imminent. Fortunately for the bridge, a bad market saved the day. The value of scrap steel plummeted, making demolition no longer profitable. At that point, the Chain of Rocks Bridge entered 20 years of bridge limbo--too expensive to tear down, too narrow and outdated to carry modern vehicles. In 1980, film director John Carpenter used the gritty, rusting bridge as a site for his science fiction film, Escape from New York. Otherwise, the bridge was abandoned.

Today you might say that the Chain of Rocks Bridge has completed a historic cycle. Built at the beginning of America’s love affair with the automobile, it is now a reflection of America’s desire not to ride in cars so often. During the 1980s, greenways and pedestrian corridors became increasingly popular, and a group called Trailnet began cleanup and restoration of the bridge.

Linked to more than 300 miles of trails on both sides of the river, the old Chain of Rocks Bridge reopened to the public as part of the Route 66 Bikeway in 1999.

Because the bridge has not been significantly altered over the years, a visit there today conveys a strong sense of time and place, an appreciation for early-20th-century bridge construction, and outstanding views of the wide Mississippi River. 

The Chain of Rocks Bridge was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.